Science fiction in general

[TDG]

Hello all,

 

While probably most of us who have come into the science fiction genre and have become fan of it have probably started through franchises like Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate perhaps, or any other television or movies, others have probably dipped into through media such as books, comics, and of course video games. (oh lets not forget painting and music)

 

For a long time when it came to science fiction I just stuck with what I was familiar with, the three "Star" series, some other series, some movie, games and and a handful of comics not based on any franchise. But eventually I decided to get out of what I was familiar with and check out the science fiction genre in general, not just science fiction that had to do with spaceships, aliens, robots etc, but also just science fiction in general; ideas about possible future development and impact on society and the human condition.
I decided to check out the works of writers that preceded the rise of the "Star" franchises such as Heinlein, Asimov, Niven, Vernor Vinge and more contemporary writers.

While some of the material was a bit unclear to me because of the language barrier (my native language is not English), or technical terms or requiring an understanding of some fields of science that I lack I did start to read a lot of stories from the Golden, Silver, "Bronze" (?) age of science fiction.
Some of it was quite out of date because science and our knowledge had progressed such as on technologies, conditions on other planets, or the stories suffered because the writing was from an earlier period and characters were sometimes very two dimensional.

Still I did enjoy quite a lot of these works and it did help reinvigorate my interest in science fiction when my usual avenues for this interest began to disappoint; Star Trek took a noose dive for me with Enterprise and has continued to be on the decline in general, Star Wars which is technically more space opera lost its appear to me with the prequels. Stargate's Atlantis felt like a rather weak SG-1 clone sometimes and I could not be bothered with Universe, once popular movie franchises got bad sequels/prequels/reboots, and others here may feel the same regarding most Hollywood science fiction movies of today being of general poor content.

 

What I would like to ask is, are there also people here that next to being "Star" franchise fans also enjoy science fiction in general? Like the mentioned books or comics that do not tie into any existing franchise?

 

I could make a list of media that I liked but I would like to see first what other posts people will make.

[the_raven]

Edited below.

[the_raven]

Hello all,

What I would like to ask is, are there also people here that next to being "Star" franchise fans also enjoy science fiction in general? Like the mentioned books or comics that do not tie into any existing franchise?

Oh yes, I know how you feel. I started with sci-fi back in the 90's (when I was still a kid, actually), and would watch just about anything they showed on TV: movies (Total Recall, Judge Dredd, Terminator, Timecop, Universal Soldier, 6th Day, Robocop, Starship Troopers, Alien, Independence Day, Predator, Close encounters of the third kind, Robo Wars, Screamers, 20.000 leagues under the sea, many others, even some erotica! ), cartoons (Transformers, Batman, Dexter's Lab, TMNT, Inspector Gadget, a few animes even), series (The X-Files, Star Trek: TNG, Guest from the future (a Soviet sci-fi series for children)). A lot of video games at the time (almost all of them, I think) were sci-fi at least to some extent.

Star Wars I didn't watch until TPM came out, so I started with that. Star Trek I only saw a few episodes as I didn't really follow the show, until I grew older. Stargate I only saw the movie (came across one of the series on TV recently, not sure why people like it so much, the "problems" feel so arbitrary, and why they had to change some of the things established by the movie I really don't understand).

I don't even watch half the Hollywood movies anymore, sci-fi or not. They are overly "realistic", "serious" (or the opposite - TLJ, I'm looking at you!), and gritty; it's all grey tones, and endings aren't satisfactory. The sci-fi films are uninspired, they all feel the same - blue/ green holograms and holo-computers, robots that behave more human than the humans, generic alien races, hyperspace travel, a loveable rogue protagonist (who isn't even all that loveable, though sometimes protagonists are done right, with them being regular people who faced crisis - Alien: Covenant, for example, though I didn't like that movie overal), and a whooping TON of cartoony CGI's - it all feels like I'm watching a sub-par action movie in sci-fi props with little-to-no context, or the context is so overused, it's not even interesting (I'm looking at you, Avatar!).

Another thing that gets to me is that when they make space operas, they always treat planets (fucking planets!!) as cities - not even as countries! Sure, Coruscant is a planet-sized city, so it kinda makes sense, but other planets? Planets where there's nothing even remotely resembling a unified planetary government system? Yes, yes, I know, budget constrains, and other practical reasons, but at least have the decency to make it feel like these are planets, not cities, make them feel diverse, at least.

Another problem is that if it's sci-fi, then it's strictly about space/ aliens, time-travel/ parallel universes, A.I./ computers, or zombie-viruses/ other kind of post-apocalypse. Ok, I get it, the first two are what most people think of when they hear 'sci-fi', the third is "current", and the last one is about those 'what if?' scenarios that everyone dreads. But come on, there's so much more to sci-fi than just this! Whatever happened to sea/ undersea sci-fi, interdimensional travel (not parallel universes where the protagonist's granny is evil), genetics, regular planetary romance, gothic sci-fi, wicked inventions, and many other things?

So, as result of all this, I turned to reading. I did watch Disney's John Carter, and I loved that movie! It actually inspired to me read the original stories. Right now, I'm kinda reading "Chessmen of Mars" (it's the fifth in the series), "kinda" because it gets a bit repetitive and boring over time. I'm also reading "The Bull's Hour" by I. Yefremov (it's Soviet sci-fi). I also read a few shorts by I. Asimov, N. Gaiman, A. Clarke, P. K. Dick, and a few novels, among which are "I am legend" by R. Matheson and "Aelita" by A. N. Tolstoy. It's not much, but it's something. I should also return to reading C. J. Cherryh's "Chanur" series and G. Orwell's "1984" because I abandoned them at one point.

As to "outdated" sci-fi, I actually love it. It's interesting and fun to see what people expected of the future, what became reality and what didn't. Movies are good for this too, but you know, books have more depth in these things.

Actually, there's a sci-fi themed reddit community. Not long ago, someone complained on there that cyberpunk is greatly outdated because half the things it speaks about didn't happen. What I think, is that we're actually getting there, because we can see today that technology is evolving at a rapid pace, cybernetic implants and hover-cars are being developed, more and more people are constantly online, the internet is getting everywhere (even in one's salt shaker!), the environment is falling apart, mass surveillance is a thing (even if your government doesn't spy on you, big data corporations are!), and "civilized" capitalism is getting out of hand (at least, in some countries).

Um, did I forget to mention something?

So yes, I do love sci-fi.